‘Don’t do it,’ I said. ‘You’ll just make him mad.’
‘He’s mad already,’ was the reply. ‘Stark, staring mad. Why don’t you soothe him? Say something calming.’
I glanced at Helena, thinking she might try to control her outraged lover, but she was giggling happily as she watched. Two men were dueling over her; what more could a girl ask of life? I looked at the footman, and realized I wasn’t going to get any help from that quarter. Before I could think what to say, Pietro had tugged his sword free, bringing a little cloud of stuffing with it, and had turned back to his secretary. He took a wild swipe at Smythe, who brought his blade up just in time. Steel rang on steel, and I sat up a little straighter. Pietro was beside himself. That blow would have split Smythe’s skull if it had connected.
The duel with the umbrellas had been pure farce, but only because the weapons were harmless. Pietro hadn’t pulled his punches that time, and he wasn’t doing it now; I couldn’t tell whether he was so drunk he did not realize he was holding a sharp blade, or whether he didn’t care. There was a streak of violence in that little fat man after all. And he knew how to fence. Luckily Smythe seemed to have had some experience too. Pietro was no Olympic gold medalist, but Smythe’s defence was complicated by the fact that he didn’t want to injure his infuriated employer, or even allow him to injure himself. Smythe had to defend two people, and refrain from attacking. He wasn’t smiling as he retreated, with careful consideration for the rugs scattered hither and yon on the dangerously slippery polished floor. Once Pietro tripped on a fringe; if Smythe’s blade hadn’t knocked his aside, he would have stabbed himself in the calf.
I decided the affair had gone on long enough. If Pietro didn’t cut somebody, he would have a stroke; he was purple in the face and streaming with perspiration. I slid in behind him, and as his arm went forwards I grabbed his biceps with both hands, and squeezed.
That hurts. Pietro shrieked. The sword dropped clattering to the floor, digging a long gouge in the parquetry.
Smythe stepped back and lowered his point. I could see that he was about to make some rude remark, so I dropped to my knees and wound my arms around Pietro’s legs. It made a pretty picture, I must say, and it also kept Pietro from falling over.
‘I couldn’t let you kill him,’ I choked. ‘Pietro – it would be murder! Your skill is too great. It would be like fighting an unarmed man.’
Pietro’s fiery colour subsided.
‘Yes,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Yes, you are right. It would not be honourable.’
He was still angry, though. He turned on Helena, whose face mirrored her disappointment at the tame ending. She had wanted to see some blood.
‘No thanks to you that my honour is not tarnished,’ he snarled. ‘You hoped I would be killed, eh? Then you and your lover would steal away with my jewels. Give them to me!’
Clutching the brooch, Helena backed away. Pietro followed her, waving his arms, and elaborating on his theme. Smythe sat down. He had collected both swords and was holding them firmly.
‘Leave them alone,’ he said, as I started after Pietro and Helena. ‘He’ll pass out soon, and then we can all go to bed.’
Pietro did not pass out. The exercise had used up some of the alcohol he had consumed, and he was quite lively and looking for trouble. He pursued Helena in their ludicrous game of tag, and she retreated. The French doors onto the terrace were wide open, and I wondered why she didn’t go out; she could get clean away from him in the gardens. But she avoided the windows, and finally he got her backed into a corner. I didn’t see exactly what happened, only a scuffle of flailing arms and agitated movements. Then Pietro toppled over and hit the floor.
‘The winner and new champion,’ Smythe chanted. ‘A knockout in the first round.’
Helena tugged her dress back into decency.
‘He was trying to strangle me,’ she muttered. ‘I had to hit him. Do you think he is – ’
‘Out like a light,’ said Smythe, bending over his employer. ‘We had better carry him to bed. I wouldn’t go near him tonight, Helena. He will have cooled off by morning, but . . .’
‘I don’t go near him again,’ snapped Helena. ‘He is a beast, a monster. I leave him.’
She went puffing out of the room, her long skirts swinging. Her fingers were still clamped over the brooch.
Smythe and the footman carried Pietro upstairs. My room was beyond his, Helena’s was on the other side. Her door was closed when I passed it, but I thought I heard the sounds of agitated activity within. It sounded as if she were moving the furniture.
I got ready for bed, although I wasn’t tired. When I had put on a robe and slippers, I went out onto the balcony.
No capering comedian waved at me from the terrace tonight. The grounds were dark and still, with only a few pinpoints of light visible from the cottages of the employees who lived on the estate. To the left the lights of the town of Tivoli made a bright splash on the dark horizon.
It looked very quiet and peaceful down there. I thought of getting dressed and doing some exploring, but somehow the idea didn’t arouse my girlish enthusiasm. I tried to find rational reasons for my reluctance, and had no difficulty in doing so: it was early yet by Italian standards, many of the workers would still be awake, and I had no particular goal in mind, since nothing I had seen had suggested the need for further investigation. There was no sense in wandering around in the dark through unfamiliar terrain. But that wasn’t the real reason why I hesitated. I didn’t like the look of that dark garden.
I had been thinking of the Caravaggios as a comic family, something out of a TV serial, or one of those silly French farces. Now I realized that there were undercurrents of tragedy and unhappiness among them. A man may smile and smile and be a villain. He may make a damn fool of himself and be a villain too.
However, I didn’t think Pietro was the master criminal I was after. It was possible that he was a victim instead of a crook. Smythe was certainly one of the conspirators, he had admitted as much. He had only come to work for Pietro recently. I had suspected that, from the fact that the tidbits I found in the antique shop had barely been touched. Pietro was one of the names in that new file in the shop. If these men, all wealthy collectors, were the potential prey of the swindlers, then Smythe was the means by which the gang gained entry to the houses they meant to rob. He probably had impeccable credentials. They are much easier to forge than antique jewellery. Using such references, he could gain entry to the villas of his victims as a secretary, or even as a guest. He could use one victim as a reference to the next sucker in line, since the substitutions would never be suspected.
Yet one thing didn’t fit this theory. I had been kidnapped and imprisoned in the Caravaggio palace. Smythe had not been responsible for that job – or so he claimed. This implied some member of the family was involved in the plot.
The unknown I was looking for was the master criminal, the chief crook, and somehow I couldn’t believe that any of the people I had met fit that role. They weren’t smart enough. Luigi was a mixed-up, unhappy boy whose relations with his father were bad; he might explode and act in anger, but he didn’t have the experience to invent a plot as complicated as this one. The dowager was a possibility. I had known several sweet white-haired old ladies who wouldn’t balk at a spot of larceny, and although she was physically frail, there was an intelligent sparkle in her eyes.
I couldn’t see Smythe as the mastermind either. He was smart enough, but he lacked something – energy, perhaps. Yet I couldn’t eliminate him. The kidnapping might have been a trick to frighten me off. All that talk about a fate worse than death, all the implications of torture and mayhem – an act, to make me think I was in deadly danger, from which he had rescued me. A combination of gratitude and fear might have persuaded some women to give up the case. And Smythe had never intended me to identify the palazzo; only luck and my own expertise had given me that bit of information.
A soft breeze from the garden lifted my hair. It was perfumed with a nameless flower scent, infinitely seductive. It was interfering with my thinking. I went back into my room and climbed into bed with a book.
The book was one of a selection that had been thoughtfully placed on my bedside table, along with a bottle of Perrier water and a few crackers. I had no doubt that Pietro had selected the books. I chose
